Media Usage and Political Participation in Germany

The next AoIR 2015 speaker is Anna Sophia Kümpel, whose interest is in news usage patterns and their effects on political participatory behaviours. Mass media remain identified as a crucial determinant of political participatory behaviour, though their exact effects on participation remain disputed. One new factor which emerges in addition to this in more recent times is the question of which devices are being used.

Anna's project used a representative sample of German media users, and asked participants about how they learnt about news events, how they obtained further information, and what devices they used as they did so, as well as what political participatory behaviours they engaged in. The patterns of news usage and political behaviour that emerged from this were also classified.

Six distinct news usage patterns emerged: these divided into old media patterns (TV-, radio-, and newspaper-focussed), and new media patterns (using smartphones and apps, social media and laptops, and desktops).

Political participation via social media was associated mainly with social media and laptop use, smartphone and app use, and age; political participation via personal discussion was associated with social media and laptop usage, newspaper readership (in print and online), and gender (mainly male); political participation via petitions with social media and laptops, desktops, and gender (female) and education (higher).

There are thus relatively stable patterns of news consumption in Germany. People show single-media news usage behaviours; old media remain highly relevant. Different forms of political participation are influenced by different factors, but always by news consumption. News usage is always clearly connected with political participation.